There’s a comet blazing through our solar system this month.
Starting around April 5, Comet C/2026 A1 MAPS will be roughly 89 million miles from Earth, making its closest approach to the sun. That’s close enough that the comet could be visible to the naked eye in New York City.
This month's astronomical agenda also includes the first manned moon launch in 50 years, weather permitting. April will be capped with the Lyrids meteor shower.
“April is a busy month for the night sky,” said Bart Fried, member of the American Astronomical Society. “”You got a lot of cool stuff happening this month.”
Science Glance
In the middle of the 7th century, a plague swept through the walled city of Jerash, in what is now modern-day Jordan.
On February 26, 2025, a NASA probe called Lunar Trailblazer lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its mission was to map the water on the moon. But a day after launch, mission managers lost contact with the spacecraft, and it was never heard from again.
A newly discovered species of large dinosaur lived in marshy areas, hunted for fish and had an impressive horn protruding from its skull. It is the first time in over 100 years that scientists have discovered a new species of Spinosaurus dinosaurs, which are large fish-eating predators that first emerged during the Jurassic period more than 140 million years ago.
She navigated segregation to become an esteemed mathematician — and today, her work helps billions of people navigate the world.
Scientists may have discovered an explanation for a cosmic mystery uncovered by the James Webb Space Telescope several years ago: the origin of "little red dots" scattered across the cosmos.





























